Rolling Stones Exhibitionism - Chicago

The Rolling Stones are one of the most famous rock and roll bands in the world - if not THE most famous.  Since I was a youngster, I've been a fan of the Stones.  But I can't really say that I'm a fanatic about the group, per se.  I mean, I like their music.  I've quietly assembled a large collection of their albums over the years.  I've bought a couple three books on the group including Keith Richards' exceptional autobiography "Life".  And I've seen them twice in concert - once in Cedar Falls in 1981 (one of the few concerts where I didn't want the music to end) and again in Ames in 1989 (not a good time as my girlfriend and I were on the verge of breaking up).   When I found out the Rolling Stones Exhibitionism showcase tour was coming to Chicago for an extended run, I decided that I'd like to go to it.  One recent weekend, my wife and I made it in to Chicago to see the exhibit touting the "Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World."    

Now, a friend of mine from St. Louis is a Rolling Stones fanatic.  So much so, that when they announced the inaugural Exhibitionism stop in New York City last fall he flew to the Big Apple earlier this year and went through the exhibit before it closed in late March.  However, from the time that he saw the exhibit in New York, they announced that it was coming to Chicago's Navy Pier for an extended showing.  I called him up immediately after I read about it on the Chicago Tribune web site and he told me that had he known it was coming to Chicago, he would have just waited.  "But you know what," he said matter of factly.  "I'll probably go to it in Chicago at least once and maybe twice."  He's that big of a fan.  

When we were looking for tickets on line, we found that general admission was $40 bucks plus a handling fee if you bought them from the web site that would have put them close to $90 dollars for a pair.  However, the night I was going to buy the tickets on-line, I saw a Groupon ad during my Google search for tickets that basically knocked the price down to $20 each with no handling fee.  It was one of those "too good to be true" moments for me, as in "What's the catch?"  Turns out there was no catch and all I had to do was purchase the Groupon deal, download and print off a couple sheets of paper with bar codes on them that we had to turn in to the box office and we were supposedly admitted to the exhibit.  

And that's basically what happened.  We took an Uber over to Navy Pier from our downtown Chicago hotel (we could have walked, but the weather was rainy and cool - the perfect day to be inside) which dropped us off about halfway down the pier.  We had to walk about 10 minutes to the very east end of the pier to find the Exhibitionism traveling museum.  We exchanged our printed paper tickets for two "flex" tickets for that day and we stood in line for a moment waiting to get in.  

A security guard was standing near us and I showed her our tickets and asked what the term "flex" meant.  She said, "Oh, that means you can go in any time.  You don't have to stand in line."  I looked in amazement at my wife and we broke out of the queue and walked toward the door.  As we did that, the security guard announced that if anyone had flex tickets that they didn't need to stand in line.  I estimated that 80% of the people in line suddenly broke out and came to the door.  But we had a head start on most of them.  I immediately felt sorry for the people who A) paid full price for their tickets; and B) bought the tickets that only allowed them in at a specific time.  

We passed up the headsets that were only five bucks, but which offered an audio tour of the exhibit.  I didn't want to get bogged down in a spot that wasn't all that interesting to me.  But from the start, there wasn't much that was NOT interesting to me.  The exhibit traced the origins of the Rolling Stones with a walk-thru exhibit of a small flat the band lived in when they were first starting out.  I've read somewhere where Charlie Watts said that the reproduction of the room - down to the garbage on the table tops, overflowing ashtrays and filthy dishes in the sink - was chillingly realistic.  

From there, we went into a room that offered a number of interactive stops that chronicled the groups rise with early recording sessions, shows, and the equipment they used in the early years.  Pictures and videos told the story of the early Rolling Stones while Charlie Watts' original drum kit stood prominently in the center of the room.  In an enclosed room off to the side was the recreation of a recording studio which included a number of instruments used by the Stones during their early recordings.  A 60's-style mixing board was also on display off to the side.  And one of the more famous recording sessions the Stones participated in was at the old Chess Records studio on S. Michigan Ave. circa 1964.  Chicago bluesmen such as Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Little Walter and Jimmy Reed were big influences to the Stones, and during a two day period in the summer of 1964 they got to record about a dozen songs with Muddy Waters looking on in amusement at these long-haired kids from England recording his songs.  The Rolling Stones recorded two more times at the Chess studios in later years.

The late Brian Jones was featured prominently in the early years part of the exhibit.  But once the Rolling Stones turned more rock and roll than the playing the blues that Jones loved so well - coupled with Jones' growing drug dependency - it came time for a Jones split from the band.  The exhibit didn't really dwell much on that portion of Stones history - and rightly so.  But much of their best work came after the shackles of appeasing Jones came off.  

From there, the exhibit focused on the 70's when some of their most iconic music came out.  Starting in 1971 with Sticky Fingers, followed the next year by Exile on Main Street, then 1973's Goats Head Soup, and then in 1974 with It's Only Rock and Roll, the Rolling Stones started a run of what turned out to be 8 number one studio albums in the U.S. over a 10 year period.

Each of the albums in that period had a story about the songs, the recording process and - interestingly, to me - the design of the album covers.  Some of the Rolling Stones album covers are the most famous in the history of rock and roll, from the Andy Warhol-designed Sticky Fingers (I found that early releases of the album had a flaw from the zipper indenting the album - they got around it by shipping the albums out with the zipper all the way down), to the Some Girls cover that was designed by Peter Corriston that was based on an old Valmar Products catalog for 1960's hair styles for black women and featured the likenesses of the Stones next to women such as Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch.  (Some of the women - or their estates - featured on the die-cut designed cover sued the Stones for lack of permission to use their images.  Valmar Products also sued the Stones for using their design.  The Stones reissued the album without the women's images and settled out of court with Valmar.)  

But possibly the most famous icon in rock and roll is the Stones' "tongue and lips" logo, now just known as "Hot Lips".  In 1970, Mick Jagger went to the Royal College of Art, a prestigious art school in London, to see if one of the students could come up with a tour poster for the Stones' upcoming European tour.  The school suggested a student by the name of John Pasche who was showing some of his designs as part of a student finals exhibit.  Pasche and Jagger met and found that they both had a fondness of 1930's and 1940's art deco movie posters.  Pasche's second poster design (after being told that he could do better by Jagger after seeing the first design) was chosen for the tour and soon thereafter he was commissioned by Jagger to come up with a logo for the group.

Jagger had given Pasche a picture of a Hindu goddess with a prominent pointed tongue that he somehow wanted to be featured in the logo.  Legend has it that Pasche was enamored with the size of Jagger's mouth and lips, but he later said the logo really didn't have anything to do with Jagger.  He admitted that subconsciously he may have thought about the tie-in to Jagger's mouth and lips, but he said that over the two weeks he worked on the logo that many ideas sort of dove-tailed into the finished product.  For his efforts, he was paid £50 pounds (about £700 pounds - or $875 bucks - in today's money) and continued to make posters for Rolling Stones tours for the next four or five years.  Many of the posters that the Rolling Stones used for their concert tours since the 1960's were on display at Exhibitionism.  

I didn't take many photographs while we were touring the exhibition, but I did stop for a long moment to take pictures of the "Hot Lips" logo that was hung on a black background with a projector projecting different combinations of colors and designs onto the logo.  It was rather fascinating how they were able to morph designs and colors every five seconds or so onto the logo.  The photos of the logos featured on this Road Tips entry are all of the changing designs projected onto the logo at the Exhibitionism show.

From there, the exhibit showcased stage designs the Stones have used over the years for their large stadium tours.  Interactive exhibits of guitars used by the Rolling Stones over the years were on display behind glass partitions.  An interactive exhibit of being able to mix different instruments in Rolling Stones songs was a popular stop, as was the display of clothing worn by the group over the years starting with the matching houndstooth suits that their first manager Andrew Loog Oldham had them wear when they were first starting out.  But the Stones didn't like the suits and convinced Oldham to allow them to wear what they wanted on stage in what would be the first thumbing of their noses - or sticking out their tongues - by the Stones against the conventional nature of the music business in the 1960's.  The Rolling Stones rarely wore matching suits after that.  

The exhibit wound down into a room that depicted a back stage area where we waited for the final part of the showcase - a 3D video of the Rolling Stones playing Satisfaction live in concert.  The 3D visuals and the pumping surround sound was fine, but I've heard Satisfaction hundreds - if not thousands - of times in my life. Jumpin' Jack Flash would have been a better song to show.  

It took us about 2.5 hours to go through the exhibit and after the 5 minute video was over we poured out into a room that had a few more posters and pictures, which, in turn, led into the gift shop for the exhibit.  We stayed in there for about two minutes completely disgusted at the high price of clothing, souvenirs and tchotchke-type items they had the gall of charging for.  

Did I enjoy Exhibitionism?  Yeah, sure.  It was pretty cool in some spots, just all right in others.  I remarked to my wife that I was happy that we didn't spend more than $20 a ticket to get in.  I would have been pissed had I paid $40 bucks, but found that we could get in for a 2 for 1 deal through Groupon.  I'm guessing that attendance hasn't been that good for Exhibitionism - which runs through July 31 at Navy Pier - as they are now touting $25 tickets through the week (Monday thru Friday) on the web site for the exhibit through the month of June.  But, you know, if I was in the area, had some time through the week and wanted to drop $25 bucks going through Exhibitionism again, I would.  I'm sure there are some things that I missed (my wife says I'm not very observant) and there would be some things that I'd like to experience again.  If you're a big Rolling Stones fan, this shouldn't be missed.  But even if you're a fan of the Stones on the periphery, I still think it would be worth a $25 dollar admission fee and 2.5 to 3 hours of your time to go through.  Or check Groupon to see if there's any better deals on tickets like the 2 for 1 that we got.  

Comments

[Dirk Keller]

"Hot Licks" logo, not "Hot Lips".

[Road Tips]

John Pasche referred to it as the "Hot Lips" logo. I've heard it both ways, but I deferred to his reference of the logo's title in doing this entry.